I have to say that Friday’s column “And the Lord sayeth, let there be more government control” written by Bailey Lewis has to be one of the worst-reasoned opinion pieces I have ever read in the Daily.

I counted seven logical fallacies in the 10 paragraphs: a bad company fallacy, two slippery slopes, two appeals to different emotions, a false dichotomy and an appeal to authority. There is not enough room in a letter to the editor to point them out individually.

I agree with her “[t]he fact that this change is mandated is the real problem,” but as far as I can see, she gives no sound evidence to back that statement up. As far as the mercury content in compact fluorescent bulbs, she uses a bit of hyperbole in saying that we would need another recycling bag for our bulbs. It may be true that we need to deal with the bulbs in a special manner, but their lifespan of up to 15,000 hours is 15 times that of incandescent bulbs, so we won’t have to deal with old bulbs often enough for them to need their own bin.

Compact fluorescent bulbs are not as dangerous as much of the news media I have seen make them out to be. It is true that if one of these bulbs does break, special precautions do need to be taken. I would like to add, however, that the overall amount of mercury released into the environment is lower with the compact fluorescent bulbs as compared to incandescent bulbs when you include the mercury released by coal power plants. If these bulbs are properly disposed of and non-coal-based energy sources are used, then no mercury will make it into the environment.

Matthew Tillman

Graduate Student

Physics